UC Berkeley Press Release

Aerial view of the
Temple of Zeus in Ancient Nemea, built in 330 B.C. The column
drums, averaging 2.5 tons each, can be seen scattered around
the temple. UC Berkeley researchers are leading the effort
to reconstruct the temple's columns. Photo
courtesy of Nemea Excavations Archive, UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley researchers lead reconstruction
of Temple of Zeus in tribute to New Nemean Games

BERKELEY – As more than 700
runners from around the world competed in Greece last weekend
on a clay track steeped in antiquity, the Temple of Zeus stood
watch from the same place it did when athletes raced at the stadium
2,300 years ago.

Located some 400 meters from the track, the temple played a key
role in the ancient Panhellenic Games — which gave rise
to today’s Olympic Games — as the place where athletes
honored their supreme Greek god with religious rites before competition.

"The games were not just an athletic event, they were a
religious festival," said Stephen Miller, professor of classics
at the University of California, Berkeley. "In some sense,
the athlete was dedicating himself to Zeus during the games."
But unlike the temple of old, surrounded by 32 limestone columns,
the temple today features just three columns that never fell down.

The Temple of Zeus, built in 330 B.C.,
is the site where athletes once worshipped in Ancient Nemea.
The temple was originally surrounded by 32 columns, but only
three survived over the millennia. UC Berkeley researchers
led the reconstruction of two columns, shown here in the foreground,
so that five columns now stand. This photo was taken in 2002.
(Photo courtesy of Nemea Excavations
Archive, UC Berkeley)

In 2002, with the permission of the Greek government, two more
columns were re-erected. Nicos Makris, a UC Berkeley professor
of structural engineering, joined the project that year to begin
research on the reconstruction of four additional columns.

"We hope to save more columns, but it is slow, painstaking
work," said Makris, who will succeed Miller in directing
the temple reconstruction after Miller retires in December. "It’s
also expensive. It costs a quarter-million dollars to reconstruct
one column together with its corresponding base, and we are mostly
relying on the support of private donations to do this."

The temple project is part of a larger, ongoing effort that Miller
began more than 30 years ago in Ancient Nemea, a tiny Greek town
where he has unearthed the athletic stadium, entrance tunnel,
track, bathhouse, and what is likely the world’s oldest
athletic locker room.

Ancient Nemea, one of four sites of the original Panhellenic
Games, is 80 miles from Athens, where the 2004 Summer Olympic
Games will begin on Aug. 13.

Miller helped establish the New Nemean Games, held at the track
every four years on the same cycle as the Olympic Games. The Nemean
Games were first held in 1996 to revive the ancient footraces.
The third such event was held Saturday, with the modern-day competitors
running barefoot and dressed in tunics.

Miller said his work in Ancient Nemea wouldn’t be complete
without the temple, which has not only provided links to the site’s
sacred and cultural origins, but also valuable insights into innovative
engineering techniques of the time.

Reconstructing it is not "an act of necessity, nor is its
reconstruction forced upon us today," said Miller. "The
ancient Greeks and we share a fundamental creativity that marks
the human spirit at its best; we share an impulse toward a higher
civilization that leaves a record of human accomplishment, and
that serves as a beacon to future generations."

The 9,240-square-foot temple was built in 330 B.C. It had been
assumed that earthquakes — the region is plagued with as
many fault lines and temblors as California — were to blame
for the fallen columns surrounding the temple.

But further investigation revealed that a basilica south of the
temple had been constructed largely of material taken from the
Temple of Zeus. Around 435 A.D., early Christians under the reign
of Theodosios II had almost certainly demolished the 42-foot columns
surrounding the temple to gain access to the interior square blocks
and other material, according to Makris and Miller.

Unlike the monolithic columns of earlier Greek temples, the columns
of the Temple of Zeus were each made up of 13 separate stones,
called drums. The multi-drum column was typical of the Greek classical-style
architecture of that era.

Each drum measured an average of 1.5 meters in diameter and 1
meter in height. Their large weight — each drum averaged
2.5 tons — probably saved them from being looted, the researchers
said, as did the huge cylinders’ awkward shape, which was
not conducive to building walls.

Because the interior of the temple had been robbed of so much
building material, fully reconstructing the monument may not be
possible. But the effort to re-erect the exterior columns continues.
The first steps were taken in the early 1980s with Frederick Cooper,
professor of architecture at the University of Minnesota, leading
a team that catalogued 1,100 stone blocks scattered on the ground
around the temple.

Once the researchers had the blueprint of where each drum should
go, they set about the task of actually fitting them together.
But replicating the precision of the ancient Greeks would prove
to be an arduous and daunting task.

"Ancient Greek architects are known for being obsessed with
perfectly fitting stones, positioning pieces together to within
1/32 of an inch," said Makris.

Miller noted that the switch to a multi-drum column design had
long been considered a cost-saving measure, with the rationale
that working with many smaller blocks was cheaper than dealing
with a massive, single stone.

But the researchers found the preparation of two joint contact
surfaces to be very time-consuming and expensive. Makris tested
the stability of different column designs at his UC Berkeley lab
and found a more compelling reason for the switch to the multi-drum
design: seismic safety.

"The use of interlocking stones dissipates a lot of energy,"
said Makris. "A single stone or stones connected with mortar
or cement would be rigid and less able to effectively absorb the
energy induced by earthquakes."

A further linguistic clue supports the seismic stability theory:
The word the ancient Greeks used for the column drum, spondylos,
also means vertebra. The temple columns were abiding by the same
shock-absorbing principles as the human spinal column.

Indeed, the three temple columns that had not been torn down by
human hands have withstood numerous earthquakes over the past
23 centuries, including a massive 7.3 quake in 1861.

The mastery of fitting stones together leads to questions about
the types of tools ancient Greek builders had, about what techniques
they used to treat metals, and how they were able to achieve accuracy
down to a fraction of a millimeter, said Makris.

He also added that the original craftsmen were working with limestone,
a more fragile stone than marble, but locally abundant. "Building
something good with poorer material is actually more challenging
than building with the superior stone," he noted. "It
has enormous merit that these people were able to build such a
huge monument with less noble material."

With two columns reconstructed to join the three existing ones,
work is now underway to reconstruct four more columns to fill
out the northeast corner of the temple.

Miller says they are using as much of the original stone as possible
for reconstruction, but where the original material is badly eroded,
new stone must be used.

Why go to so much effort to reconstruct the temple columns?

The researchers point out that re-erecting the columns may save
them from further decay. The exposed surfaces of the large, fallen
drums have suffered badly from the effects of sun, moisture and
weeds. In contrast, the three columns that had remained intact
have weathered the years comparatively well.

"Reconstructing the columns are the best way of preserving
the ancient material," said Makris.

Additional information:

More about the excavation
site at Ancient Nemea, go to: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~clscs275.